It was a clear starry night in March when the picket line of 26 women proceeded with tri-colored banners from New York headquarters in Forty-first street to the Opera House. As we neared the corner of the street opposite the Opera House and before we could cross the street a veritable battalion of policemen in close formation rushed us with unbelievable ferocity. Not a word was spoken by a single officer of the two hundred policemen in the attack to indicate the nature of our offense. Clubs were raised and lowered and the women beaten back with such cruelty as none of us had ever witnessed before.
The women clung to their heavy banner poles, trying to keep the banners above the maelstrom. But the police seized them, tore the pennants, broke the poles, some of them over our backs, trampled them underfoot, pounded us, dragged us, and in every way behaved like frantic beasts. It would have been so simple quietly to detain our little handful until after the President’s speech, if that seemed necessary. But to launch this violent attack under the circumstances was madness. Not a pedestrian had paid any except friendly attention to the slender file of women. But the moment this happened an enormous crowd gathered, made up mostly of soldiers and sailors, many of whom had just returned from abroad and were temporarily thronging the streets of New York. They joined forces with the police in the attack.
Miss Margaretta Schuyler, a beautiful, fragile young girl, was holding fast a silken American flag which she had carried at the head of the procession when a uniformed soldier jumped upon her, twisted her arms until she cried in pain, cursed, struggled until he had torn her flag from its pole, and then broke the pole across her head, exulting in his triumph over his frailer victim.
When I appealed to the policeman, who was at the moment occupied solely with pounding me on the back, to intercept the soldier in his cruel attack, his only reply was: “Oh, he’s helping me.” He thereupon resumed his beating of me and I cried, “Shame, shame! Aren’t you ashamed to beat American women in this brutal way?” I offered no other resistance. “If we are breaking any law, arrest us! Don’t beat us in this cowardly fashion!”
“We’ll rush you like bulls,” was his vulgar answer, “we’ve only just begun.”
Another young woman, an aviatrice, was seized by the coat collar and thrown to the pavement for trying to keep hold of her banner. Her fur cap was the only thing that saved her skull from serious injury. As it was, she was trampled under foot and her face severely cut before we could rescue her with the assistance of a sympathetic member of the crowd. The sympathetic person was promptly attacked by the policeman for helping his victim to her feet. There were many shouts of disapproval of the police conduct and many cheers for the women from the dense crowd.
By this time the crowd had massed itself so thickly that we could hardly move an inch. It was perfectly apparent that we could neither make our way to the Opera House nor could we extricate ourselves. But the terrors continued. Women were knocked down and trampled under foot, some of them almost unconscious, others bleeding from the hands and face; arms were bruised and twisted; pocketbooks were snatched and wrist-watches stolen.
When it looked as if the suffocating melee would result in the death or permanent injury to some of us, I was at last dragged by a policeman to the edge of the crowd. Although I offered not the slightest resistance, I was crushed continuously in the arm by the officer who walked me to the police station, and kept muttering: “You’re a bunch of cannibals,—cannibals,—Bolsheviks.”
Upon arriving at the police station I was happily relieved to find eve of my comrades already there. We were all impartially cursed at; told to stand up; told to sit down; forbidden to speak to one another; forbidden even to smile at one another. One by one we were called to the desk to give our name, age, and various other pieces of information. We stood perfectly silent before the station lieutenant as he coaxingly said, “You’d better tell.”—“You’d better give us your name.”—“You’d better tell us where you live—it will make things easier for you.” But we continued our silence.
Disorderly conduct, interfering with the police, assaulting the police (Shades of Heaven! assaulting the police!), were the charges entered against us.